36. Luna
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
LUNA
The stone was cold and rough against my skin as the mongrel creatures dragged me through the dark halls. I struggled against their hold, but there were many of them and only one of me. The air thickened, heavy with a sense of malevolent power as they carried me toward massive iron doors engraved with glowing runes I didn't recognize.
With an ominous groan, the doors swung open, revealing a chamber that made my heart seize with dread. An enormous arcane circle dominated the center of the room, its lines pulsing with eerie light. The hybrids hauled me forward, their claws digging into my arms. I writhed and fought them, but it was useless. They were too strong.
They dragged me to the center, clamping iron chains on me hand and foot, tearing off my clothing with their claws. Then they ran from the room, squealing and hooting as if they were in pain.
The magic gathered in the room was old and twisted, making the air hum like a plucked instrument string. It pressed down on me, squeezing out my breath. My vision blurred with the force of it.
The runes etched into the stone seemed to writhe before my eyes, ancient symbols of binding and dark invocation. I recognized a few from Rose’s lessons. Conduits to channel vast amounts of power, fueled by blood and suffering. The realization turned my stomach. I had to find a way to disrupt this foul magic, but how? The working was far beyond my meager skills.
Even if I linked with the babe.
A flash of movement caught my eye. At the edge of the circle, a huge grey wolf prowled the perimeter, its green eyes gleaming with uncanny intelligence. As I watched, transfixed, the beast's form rippled and changed. Bones cracked and reformed, fur receded, until the wolf became a tall man in a white robe covered with dizzying embroidery in couched silver and gold wire.
Moonshifter. The architect of all this horror.
I sagged against the chains, despair rising in my throat. I couldn't let Moonshifter and Vala succeed. Too much was at stake. My child...
Living in a world where Vala was a god didn’t sit well with me either.
There had to be an opening, a way to fight back. The alternative, that Benedetto and I would become puppets of her, and our child would die to fuel her ascension - was too terrible to contemplate.
Disruption was my power, but I couldn’t use it too soon. I had to wait for my moment.
Vala swept into the room like a poisoned wind, her emerald gown trailing behind her in ripples like the ocean. A small, content smile played about her lips as she crossed the chamber to where I stood. She moved with her usual languid grace, as if this were a day like any other.
"Poor Luna," she murmured, stopping before me. She reached out one pale hand to stroke my cheek. Her touch was cool and gentle. "You look so frightened. Don't fret, my dear. It will all be over soon. And the world will be a better place."
I jerked my face away from her caress, my lips curling in disgust. "You're insane," I spat. "This ritual, using an unborn child, it's monstrous beyond words!"
Vala sighed, a weary sound entirely at odds with the determination in her eyes. "Foolish girl. You understand nothing. We aren't destroying anything. I’m taking back what should have been the fate of the empire. The old gods are dead, and something needs to fill that void. What happens to a single child doesn’t outweigh the needs of the many."
"It matters to me!" The words tore from my throat, ragged and fierce. I strained against the chains, knowing it was useless but needing to do something, anything. The rough metal scraped my wrists, but I welcomed the pain. It helped me focus. "I won't let you sacrifice my child to your ambition. I'll fight you to my last breath!"
Vala shook her head, her expression compassionate. "It’s hard, I know."
Her gaze dropped to my belly. "You’ll have more. Mothers lose children. Accept it and cherish the ones you have in the future. They’ll be the happier for this one’s sacrifice."
I glared at her, pouring all my hatred into my eyes. I wouldn't dignify her idiocy with a response. She was wrong. My child wasn't a thing, a mere sacrifice, but a tiny, precious life.
I dragged my gaze away from Vala's face.
Shouting and struggles announced Benedetto’s arrival, carried as I’d been, but successful in hurting some of the creatures, even pinned arms and legs. A gesture from Moonshifter left him rigid and silent as they chained him to the far wall.
My heart lurched against my ribs. His shirt was torn and stained with blood, his black hair disheveled, his face and body cruised. But his eyes... When they met mine, they blazed with such love and fury that it stole my breath.
A circle of magic surrounded Benedetto, tracing runes that arced in a half circle to join the wall where he was chained. Both the circle and Benedetto's shackles glowed with a sick purple light. Pure magic, strong enough to hold even the strongest. I could feel the thrum of the spell from across the room, a wall of force caging my husband's power. They'd left his sword belt and blade on him, as if to mock his helplessness.
"Luna!" Benedetto's shout cracked with desperation. He lunged against the chains, muscles straining. The magic flickered but held.
Vala turned to him, a disapproving frown on her lips. "Still you struggle? How foolish. You must know you've lost. All the pieces are in place."
Her voice went to pure frost. "And if you plan to die, well... I'm sure with the proper persuasion, your Francesco could put a child in her for us. The bloodline must continue, after all. So put that thought out of your head."
I gagged, gorge rising in my throat. The image Vala's words conjured was so horrific, so cruel, that I couldn't breathe. Using Francesco like that, after all he'd suffered... And Benedetto, forced to imagine it... It was a nightmare made manifest.
It was a cruel threat made by a woman who knew her son.
Benedetto roared his rage, but I heard the edge of despair beneath the fury. Vala had trapped us utterly. If I fought, they'd hurt him until I shattered. And if he died... I couldn't even contemplate it. The violation, the brutality, the grief, it would destroy me as surely as any magic.
Vala knew it too. It was written in every line of her determined face. She had me. Had us. There was no escape, no clever gambit that could win free. Unless...
A thought stirred in the back of my mind, fragile as a soap bubble, the remnants of a dream hidden until this moment. The spell. I could disrupt it, with the child... It would be almost impossible, with the magical restraints on me. And so, so dangerous, with the amount of power Vala and Moonshifter were pulling through me and the child. But what choice did I have? Cooperating doomed everything and everyone I loved.
Our eyes met across the room. I tried to put everything I felt into that look. All my love, my fear, my regret. And my determination. One way or another, I would not let Vala win this. Even if it cost my life.
Benedetto's gaze held mine, and I knew he understood. His chin dipped, just slightly, and I saw the same resolve settle over him. Live or die, we would face this together. No matter what.
If nothing else, we’d have the afterlife. In true Dimare fashion.
The chamber fell suddenly, utterly silent, save for the thump of my own pulse in my ears. For a moment, everything stood still. Then Moonshifter stepped forward to the edge of the circle, his embroidered robes rustling. He raised his hands, and the runes around me flared to burning life.
The sorcerer's voice rose, echoing from the stone walls, a guttural chant in a language that conjured its meaning to your mind, even if the words heard meant nothing.
The syllables twisted and writhed, as if fighting the very air. Moonshifter's hands moved in patterns that seared themselves into my vision, impossibly intricate and dizzyingly wrong.
With a chill, I recognized the spell. The gestures, the cadence of the chant... Sofia had taught them to Rose.
Though she refused to let Rose attempt it. A ritual to transport us to the godplane.
The air pressure dropped until my ears popped and I gasped for breath. Above the circle, reality shimmered and bent, like water about to boil. Distortion spiraled out from the heart of the spell, and a warp opened in the center of the vortex, a hole that was not a hole, leading everywhere and nowhere at all. The temperature plummeted until I could see my breath. Power crackled along my limbs, dancing over my skin in razor-edged sparks.
"Yes," Vala murmured. Her face shone with stern purpose in the eldritch light. "This will be done soon. The power of the dark moon enhanced by the ritual will fracture the wards on the Lord of Nightmare’s power and tap into the energy of the godplane."
She raised her arms as if in welcome. "We will ascend beyond mortality. Become the new gods this world so desperately needs."
The words battered me like fists. Blood roared in my ears, and I sagged in the chains, shaking uncontrollably.
The spell rose in me, and I twisted my magic, creating it subtly, as my grandmother had taught me.
Connection. I linked my magic with the wisp that was my babe’s.
Deep in my abdomen, a sharp, rending pain lanced through me, doubling me over. But it wasn't the child trying to tear free, as I'd first feared. No, this was a psychic pain, a burst of distress and fury pouring from the life cradled in my womb.
Through the pain, I felt a fierce swell of protectiveness, of determination. This precious mote of life, my son or daughter, was crying out to me, begging me to save us both from the horrors to come.
It was a bond deep as blood, strong as life, forged in our magic. I closed my eyes, trying desperately to send soothing thoughts to the little one inside me, even as another bolt of shared agony made me gasp.
Now was the time. I had to turn my link to my baby into a weapon and wait to strike. To channel the dark moon's magic through both of us and use it to shatter Moonshifter's spell from within.
If I failed, if I let Vala become a god at the cost of my child’s life... I would never forgive myself. The guilt would eat me alive as surely as any godly wrath.
I bit my lip until I tasted blood, fighting to master the pain. Straightening in my chains, spine stiff with defiance. I had to wait for my moment, fending away the damage to the babe, taking it into myself.
One way or another, I would teach these twisted fools the cost of threatening my family.
Between one blink and the next, the world shattered and reformed. Coarse sand and white dust scraped my feet and the sun beat down like a hammer, scouring away all thought. I squinted against the sudden glare, my chains digging into raw skin as I twisted.
This was where my dreams happened? I’d been to the Godplane unknowing? Would the dark shrouded figure, whatever he was, manifest here too?
The barren desert stretched out to the horizon in all directions, broken only by wind-scoured boulders. Heat shimmers danced in the distance, mocking my thirst. But Moonshifter's ritual circle had come with us, every rune and sigil intact.
The magic pulsed under the merciless sun, trails of silver and gold and dark purple burning in the very air.
Vala stood beside the circle, her arms raised in raw exultation, murmuring a chant very different from Moonshifter's eldritch invocation. "Void, hear your daughter. I summon the dead god’s power contained in your depths, through the dark moon’s power. The wards are broken, and I stand ready."
The surge of magic jolted me, twisting as if in the connection I’d forged with my babe.
Shock jolted through me, driving out even the pain in my belly. “You follow the Void?”
“I follow what will achieve my ends,” whispered Vala. “I will see Dimare, and my family covered in the glory we deserve.”
A clatter of chains and a strangled roar snapped Vala's attention away from me. Benedetto. He thrashed against his bonds, his muscles bunching, his face a mask of rage and frustration. My heart twisted at the sight. He was killing himself trying to reach me, uncaring of the damage to his own body.
"Still he persists. Admirable, in its way." Vala watched Benedetto sadly. "I wish he could understand why this is for the best."
Her words scoured my soul like the desert wind. She was utterly, completely mad. And worse, her madness made a terrible sense. I could see the shape of her plan now, and it filled me with despair.
The gods really were dead and their power in the Void, and my child would grant the ascension she craved. She had thought of everything.
And yet, Benedetto still fought. Seeing him, the wild defiance in his eyes, the set of his jaw, kindled an ember of hope in my breast. As he could rage against this fate, distracting them, I’d wait and strike.
A shadow fell over the sun, and the sky darkened to a bruised violet. The wind picked up, scouring the desert with flying grit. On its heels came a sound that made every hair on my body stand erect - a keening wail, an eagle's shriek, the hunting scream of some unnatural beast.
Fear rolled before it. I’d heard that cry in my dreams.
In the center of the circle, a vortex of starless black ripped open above our heads, devouring light, thought, sanity. Ribbons of silver nothingness swirled out from its maw, enveloping Vala and Moonshifter.
They shone so bright I turned my eyes away rather than be blinded.
I collapsed to my knees, gagging on the waves of crushing force emanating from the ritual. It felt like being buried alive, like drowning in power. My pulse roared in my ears and cold sweat drenched my skin. I could barely breathe, barely think. I held the bond with the babe.
But through the haze of pain and fear, I saw it - Vala and Moonshifter's utter distraction. Their absorption in the power pouring into them.
Their iron control had slipped.
Now!
While the ritual continued, their bodies would be vulnerable to a physical force. If I could shatter the bonds restraining Benedetto.
I gathered the magic, mine and the babe’s. A cold, clear energy, pure and piercing as moonlight on snow. It sang through my blood and nerves.
The dark moon's magic, our birthright. A legacy of power, devouring madness and secret wisdom.
I had only barely touched this force before, even when Grandmother trained me. So much magic could master me, erasing all that I was. But now, here, it was my only hope. My sole weapon against the horror that threatened everything I held dear.
I closed my eyes, shutting out the nightmare vortex, the terrifying light, even Benedetto's desperate struggle. I focused inward, diving deep into the icy ocean that swelled beneath my heart. I visualized the gossamer thread that bound me to my child, pulsing with argent fire. With infinite care, I gathered up blazing droplets of that power.
It burned like a coal in my mind's grasp, searing away thought, doubt, even self. But I refused to let it consume me. This was my child's strength, but it was mine to direct. Slowly, agonizingly, I shaped the droplet into a shard of pure moonlight, sharp as thought and cold as death.
The working fought me, bucking wildly in my hold. It had been too long denied and desired to run rampant. But I held fast, pouring all my iron will into the effort. Then, with whispered words of power that flayed my throat, I hurled my spell-blade across the shimmering air, straight at the chains that bound my beloved Benedetto.
The shackles were woven of magics far beyond my ken, and I was all but exhausted in mind and body. I could so easily miss, or fail to cut deep enough, or gods forbid, slice into Benedetto himself with this wild, unfettered magic.
But I had no other choice. No recourse but this desperate gamble. So I poured all that I had, all that I was, into this single strike. My love, my defiance, my raging, unquenchable need to protect my own.
For a heartbeat that lasted an eternity, my spell-blade flew through the turbulent air. Then, with a discordant chime that set my teeth on edge, it struck the chains binding Benedetto. Sickly purple light flared, and the manacles flashed incandescent. Hairline cracks raced along the magic-forged metal and Benedetto vanished in a flare of blinding silver.
"Bene, now!" I screamed, my voice cracking with strain. "Strike hard!"
And strike he did. Between one blink and the next, Benedetto appeared behind Moonshifter. The mage began to turn, too late. Benedetto's sword hissed from its sheath in a whisper of steel, and he lunged forward, his eyes blazing with fury.
Moonshifter threw himself aside with preternatural speed, and the blade meant for his black heart scored deep along his ribs instead, spraying blood. Liquid crimson splattered the sand as the two men crashed together, grappling furiously.
"Foolish boy," Moonshifter hissed, his voice edged in pain and mockery. "You cannot win. And when you fall, I will shatter your mind as I shattered your brother's. The mad king and madder pauper. What a pair you'll make!"
Benedetto snarled, redoubling his efforts. His blade flashed in the eldritch light as he hammered at Moonshifter's defenses, raining down blows. The mage slipped and swayed like an eel, impossibly nimble, but even he couldn't evade that storm of steel forever.
In the heart of the ritual circle, the vortex pulsed erratically, reacting to the disruption. Streamers of black and silver fire ripped free, scorching sigils into the sand. The earth beneath my knees buckled like a wild horse, and the sky split open with thunder. The air tasted of blood, ashes, and the terrible sweetness of putrefaction.
Magic, raw and untamed, rioted within the circle. It battered at my senses, threatening to sweep me away in sheer chaos. At the same time, I felt the dark moon's power flare again in my core - stronger, wilder, an ocean of ice and fire begging to be unleashed.
The baby... our magics resonated in a mounting crescendo. I could taste the copper of our shared blood on my tongue. We were one in that endless moment, bound by a link that transcended flesh.
With an effort that nearly broke me, I forced down my instinctive panic, my urge to lock down my mind and body against this howling invasion. Instead, I threw open every door and window of my soul, inviting in the child's rising tide of magic.
It crashed into me with the force of a glacier calving, and for a terrifying instant, I thought it would rip me apart, scouring away all that I was. But I held fast, pouring every ounce of my love and desperate will into the mental embrace. I would not shatter. I could not. Too much depended on me.
Slowly, agonizingly, I wrestled the surging tide of magic into submission. It fought me every step of the way, yearning to break free. But I persisted, weaving my own fledgling power around it like bands of spider-silk, delicate but strong.
Shaking and drenched in icy sweat, I unleashed our dark moon-magic and aimed it at the draining spell that still blazed above us.
"Let us end this nightmare. Together," I whispered to my unborn little one.
The combined magics, mine and my baby's, roared out of us. It was the most exquisite agony I had ever known, an ecstasy annihilating thought and self. I was a river of light, a sunbeam in flesh, a falling star given breath.
And that torrent smashed into the ritual’s manifestation with the force of a thousand storms. The portal shattered like glass, and the backlash exploded through the ritual circle in a wave of coruscating force.
Dimly, distantly, I heard Vala’s scream and Moonshifter’s curse. The earth bucked and heaved beneath me, spasms of agony coiling in me as all my limbs cramped. But all sensation was washed out and faded, happening to some other soul in some other world.
I could feel myself ebbing, my mind and spirit eroded to feed that blast of magic. The spell that connected me to my child guttered and vanished.
We had given our all and more. Both of us were done.
My grandmother stood above me, shaking her head and weeping. Another woman knelt by her, a woman of my own age, with hair bright as flame.
She embraced me tenderly. “Little one, baby girl, fight to stay.”
"Luna!" Benedetto's desperate cry cut through the haze, banishing the vision. "Love, no. Hold on! I love you!"
I clung to his voice like a lifeline, letting it draw me back. With the dregs of my strength, I let go of the other world, with my battered flesh, feeling every scrape and bruise as if for the first time. My eyes fluttered open.
The world went mad.
The desert, the ritual circle, the eldritch storm, all of it shattered into glimmering shards, leaving only the blood-soaked stone of the castle chamber. The magic backlash smashed into the far wall with a deafening boom, shaking dust and rubble from the ceiling.
Benedetto lay beside me, wounded, a scorch mark in his back. Moonshifter, fists burning, surveyed the two of us with an unholy rage in his eyes. He raised one hand, and in his palm bloomed a sphere of oily darkness.
Across the room, Vala staggered to her feet, her emerald gown reduced to scorched and tattered rags. Her face was a mask of disbelief, twisted almost beyond recognition.
"Blast you," Moonshifter spoke, his voice raw and ragged. "You haven’t won. Die, both of you!"
He aimed that swirling unlight at both of us.
With a strength I didn't know I possessed, I lurched upright, throwing myself between the bolt and Benedetto's crumpled form. He was still breathing, but a crimson stain was spreading beneath him with terrifying speed. My love. My heart. I would not let this monster take him from me.
I gathered the tattered remnants of my power, mine and the baby's, weaving them into a gossamer shield. It was barely more than a soap bubble, fragile and flickering, but it was all I had left. All that stood between those I loved and oblivion.
"No," I said. "This ends here. You will not touch my child. You will not hurt my husband. You will touch nothing I love."
He sneered at me, a hellish light burning in his obsidian eyes. "You can't stop me, little girl. You're spent. Broken. You have nothing left. And I have the power I took, even yet."
Behind him, the air flickered, the shifting colors of an unfamiliar magic forming. If that were Sofia and Soulrider, we had a chance. I just needed to buy a little more time…
I met his gaze with my own.
Oddly, I felt no fear. Only a calm, crystalline certainty. "You're wrong. I have something you can never understand..."
“And that would be?” he raised a brow, his voice mocking.
As I hoped, he’d hold his hand to toy with me before he blasted us.
“Love.”
He stared at me a moment, then laughed raucously. “Do you think you’re in a play, little girl? Love is the least powerful force in this world. It bends, it breaks, and you can buy it in the market for cheap, ten loves for a penny. I’d hoped you had something of interest, but I’ll give you a fast death for making me laugh.”
Vala screamed, a sound of rage and despair, and hurled a bolt of magic at him from behind.
It scattered, and the remaining force struck my shield and drove me to my knees, nearly shattering my hasty defenses. Nearly, but not quite.
Moonshifter turned and blasted her.
I held fast, pouring all that I was into that luminous barrier as they fought. I thought of Benedetto, of our stolen moments of tenderness, our dreams of a future. I thought of the tiny spark of life nestled beneath my heart, defenseless and precious beyond words. I thought of the world I wanted to make for them, for all of us.
And with that vision burning in my mind's eye, I pushed back against the darkness. I refused to yield. I would never yield, not even to despair.
A brilliant flash of light split the air, so intense that it seared my eyes even through closed lids. The ground shook with the force of a Name being invoked, the syllables reverberating through my bones like the tolling of a great bell.
They’d come at last.